1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to a hearing aid system, and more particularly to a hearing aid system comprising a user configurable equalizer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A hearing aid is defined and regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is an electroacoustic device which is designed to amplify sound for the wearer, usually with the aim of making speech more intelligible, and to correct impaired hearing as measured by audiometry.
Most forms of correctable hearing loss exhibit different characteristics according to frequency of the sound. For example, one user may find difficulty in hearing lower frequencies while another user's difficulty may reside in higher frequencies. Many hearing aids address this problem using frequency compression and/or by shifting inputted frequencies to a higher or lower frequency where they may be more audible to the user of the hearing aid without requiring excessive amplification. Unfortunately, shifting of frequencies often results in an unnatural sound quality.
Another difficulty in the use of such hearing aids is that such approaches are frequently fixed at manufacture and are not readily adjustable depending upon local environmental variables or user preferences in different situations.